VPN for YouTube: how to get normal video speed back
Why YouTube lags in Russia, whether a VPN helps, which server to pick for 1080p and 4K, and how to turn the VPN on for video only and leave everything else as is.
Video spins at 480p, and 1080p loads forever. It's not your internet: access to YouTube is being slowed down on purpose. Through a tunnel the throttling doesn't kick in, because the provider can't see what's inside.
What helps
Any working VPN removes the throttling entirely. For video, Surok's "Europe · auto" exit is best: once a minute it picks the fastest server, and we have plenty of bandwidth to Europe. On a phone on mobile internet "Europe · auto" is sometimes faster.
What it costs in speed
Through our exits you get 60–100 Mbit/s on an ordinary home connection, enough for 4K. If the video still buffers, try another country: YouTube has its own servers in each, and the nearest isn't always the fastest.
Only YouTube, the rest directly
The browser extension has a whitelist mode: only the listed sites go through Surok, everything else as usual. Add youtube.com and googlevideo.com, and Russian services won't notice a foreign address.
In the apps all traffic goes through the tunnel, but Russian sites open directly thanks to built-in rules: Gosuslugi and banks keep working.
TV
On Android TV and Apple TV YouTube is throttled too. How to connect a TV is a separate article.
Doesn't help
Check on the IP page that the address has changed. If it changed but video lags, it's the exit: switch the country. If it didn't change, the VPN isn't connected.